Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-12-04
OUR BOOM.
What a London Paper
Says Of It.
A GLOWING ACCOUNT.
It is Not a Gamble in Lands, but
Legitimate Investments
in Property.


tinue for centuries to be, one Of the
richest mineral countries in the
world; but that is only one of its dis
tinctions. Every year of its history
seems to develop some new source Of
wealth in it. When the gold. digger
had settled down the wheat-growel
followed at his heels, and in less than
a decade he made California wheat
celebrated from st. Petersburg to the
Antipodes. Next, some genius dis
covered the lucky secret of hydraulic
mining. By simple stream
Of water turned on at ficient
pressu he demolished gravel banks
saicker than pick nd spade. or even
diamond rock borer could think of.
Water was brought down from the
mountains by canals, some of them
forty or fifty miles long, and let out to
miners, who fixed huge pipes to it,
with MOBILES, which they playfully
termed Little Giants" and some
times 9. Monitors" A nozzle with
zU0 feet of pressure Oh in could soon
knock hole in brick wall. II g
suriferous drifts which had been lett
sntseched by the old-time diggers
were now alta ;ked with hose and
zzle, and yielded more gold in a
month than could have been got from
he alluvial in a year.
Once more the other men came in
and borrowed from the miner his
happy thoughts. When the canal
builders got thoroughly to work they
discovered other uses for the noun
tain streams than hydrauli king. In
the volcanic plains OF Southern Cali
fornia boundless field lay oien for
irrigation. The agriculturlsts, who at
first regarded the hydraulicker as an
intruder and a nui ance, learned by
and-by that he was blessing
in disguise. The builders OF
these water canals and sluices
had uni Internationally done the greae est
blessing they could think of to Cali
fornia agricu ture. Seeing the water
run to waste, it occurred to the farmers
near whose lands it passed that they
might use it for irrigation. They
turned it on to their low-lying
meadows, and were amazed at the
result. When before they could
raise only one poor and uncertain
crop of grass they could now
cut four or five heavy crops.
One success led to another, and a new
idea suggested itself that these lands,
properly irrigated. and with the ''glo-
rious climate of California" to help
them, might grow much better things
than g ass or even wheat. Expert
ments began to be made in grape and
fruit growing, all with the most
gratifying results. Vines came in
to bearing very rapidly, and
at maturity they produced crops
which to European experience seemed
fabulous. In the second year tue
grapes are worth picking, ami in the
third they have sometimes paid the
whole cost of the vineyard. Some of
the orchard stories are even more
wonderful. A California editor re-
corded lately, with justiiable pride,
a visit to his Office by fruit-grower
at West Park, who showed samples of
peaches measuring 9M inches in cir
conference, and apples still larger,
viii n had been grown on two-y ear
old trees.
OF course some latitude must be al
lowed to editorial enthusiasm, in Cal
ifornia as well as elsewhere; but we
have more impartial and independent
authority On the subject In the be-
ginning OF the present year, Mr..
George Baden Powell, NJ. P, visited
these Western Hesperides, inspected
them carefully, and ote an interest
ing rep Jrt on them. 1t is dated from
Fresno, in February last, and af-
forJs a reliable, comprehensive view
of these two new industries
which have sprung up on the Pacific
slope-wine and fruit growing. In
the opinion of Mr.. Baden Pow II they
are to revolutionise both the wine
and the fruit trades, and are to be the
finest sources of wealth California has
yet tapped. His conclusions, put on
record nearly a year ago, have been
wonderfully confirmed by the great
vineyard and orchard boom which
has since swept across the district
and is now in full blast
In this very Fresno, where he
penned his report, lands are now sell
ling at four or five times the prices he
could have bought them for. The
sales of +" real estate" as it is called,
exceed anything ever known in the
history of California, or indeed OF
America at large. They exceed in
value the real property turned over in
the same period in any three of the
largest cities in Europe.
Not many of our eaders may have
heard of Fresno before, and it may
seem to them rather cheeky for an
unknown California town to measure
itself against London, Paris or Berlin.
But Fresno is checker even than that.
1t challenges them all three together,
and offers figures to prove that its
property sales are more than they can
aggregate amongst them. Two or three
million dollars is considered very
moderate davis work for the land
agents to get through, and the de-
clared value of transfers recorded in
the County Land Office from the Isl
January to tn, 31st August last was
over sixty-six million dollars, or near
ly fourteen millions sterling. On the
half Of such a business they could live
magnihcentlv in Tokenhouse-yard
And the Fresno boom is evidently
still far from full flood; i
is only getting under weigh, anc
the infection is but beginning tt
spread. There is a comical similarity
between the progress OF q real prop
erty boom in the West and a religion,
revival. The people rush into it with
equal fervor, and often apply the very
same words to it. The local press an
nominees that Benicia has been "strucl
by the BOOM" that excitement raj
high yesterday in Oakland" or tina